Major debates in the GOP race for governor and the Democratic race for the U.S.

Senate.

That's our lead story on this correspondent's edition of Off the Record.

So sit in with us.

If we get the inside out off the record.

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And now, this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to Studio C. Well, if you like debates and don' we all are on this table, right?

So let's do the governors debate first, the three candidates, Republicans running for governor.

How did they do?

I think pretty well.

And I think, you know, John James was gracing the debate stage.

He's been a little reluctant to do that.

And I think that he proved that, you know, his reluctance was maybe based on thinking he's the front runner rather than not wanting to debate, because he really looked prepared up there.

Yeah.

I mean, I think why I think the first one of the week was, quite a slugfest.

Just personal attacks left and right among all of the candidates.

It was pretty, pretty raucous debate last night.

It seemed a little more, settled a little more focused on policy.

There are still their fair share of personal attacks, but it was interesting to see how each of those candidates fared.

That was basically driven by the formats.

Okay.

When you say to the candidates, you don't have time for rebuttal.

It's hard to do it.

The thing at channel two was kind of wide open with regard to that.

So that was part of that problem there.

Yeah, I mean that's exactly right.

Earlier in the week, I think that there was, quite a lot of back and forth in the first debate.

The second one was a lot more policy focused, but I guess I would also back up and say, I don't know that if you watch this debate and you were, say, somebody who is going to vote for Mike Duggan prior to him dropping out, I don't know if this debate would have swayed you towards one candidate or another, despite the fac multiple times in both debates, these candidates were asked, you know, if you're governor, you're going to be governor of the full state.

Democrats, Republicans, independents.

How will you work together?

That question was never fully answered.

John James was able to point to some bills in Congress that he was able to get passed under Trump and Biden.

So, you know, there was some of that there.

But by and large, it did kind of return back to a sort of a slugfest, as Beth said.

And I don't know if you're an independent at home, you really saw what maybe you were hoping for.

Well just quickly to that point, I expected somebody at some point to turn to the camera and see Mike Duggan supporters out there.

I'm your guy, and here's why.

But that was a golden opportunity to pick up and talk to 25% of the vote that was out there.

You saw Cox try and do it.

Yeah.

A little bit.

I think that and we didn't see, you know, Democrat Jocelyn Benson, his name invoked into midway through the second debate.

Jocelyn who?

And they did Benson, they're going to think is that a cigarette.

Right.

And I think that part of like winning a primary is saying that I'm the best Republican to beat the Democrats in the general election.

And here's why.

And instead, this wa sort of a melee of negativity.

It kind of mirrored what if you've been tuning in to broadcast TV over the last few months, it was sort of the barrage of negativity that we've seen a lot of these campaign ads.

Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know, of course, these candidates should take advantage of any time they're on TV to appeal to voters and independent voters, but keep in mind, too, this was a primary debate.

So they are courting Republican voters who are voting in the primary.

But yeah, I mean if they were hoping to get ahead a little bit with independent voters or with undecideds, they they didn't take that opportunity.

But independent voters have to pick one primary or the other to vote in, or they might not or they might not look at it was still worth the shot.

Okay.

And it would it would have set them apart from everybody else.

And John James had a Jennife Granholm moment in the debate, in a debate that she did years ago with Jim Blanchard and, David Bonior.

She turned to the camera and said, you know what's going on here?

These two guys don't want me to win.

John James did the same thing last night in Grand Rapids, did he not?

When you said these guys are just beating me up.

And here's my my point.

Yeah.

I mean I think there was a little bit of ganging up on John James.

I think that both Perry Johnson and Mike Cox brought a little bit of a fight to the table on purpose.

I think that makes sense for where the race is positioned right now.

And I think James handled himself really well, and Cox handled himself really well, you know, to the point about, courting people and making sure that, you know, electability arguments.

There was a lot of back and forth between John James and Mike Cox on who was in a better position to win statewide, if not necessarily against democrats.

But it's also interesting how Mike Cox would say, yeah, Perry was right.

And Perry would say, Mike, you were right.

And Joh James is sort of sitting there.

Yeah.

No, I mean, it's exactly what Emily said.

We're seein these two candidates who know.

I mean, John James has th endorsement of President Trump.

That's going to go a long way in a Republican primary.

Of course, these two who are on the sides, Johnson and Cox they're going to want to tear, John James down in any way that they can.

You know, again, it' not all that surprising to me.

Well were there any knockout punches?

A Lloyd Bentsen moment?

I don't know.

Well, I know John Kennedy.

You know John Kennedy.

There was a callback to the Wednesday night's debate where they pointed out that Mike Cox had had something written on his hand.

And John James asked if, you know, if he couldn't remember what was going on.

He needed something written down on his hand.

And that brought out a lot of, screams from the media room, at least.

But I don't necessarily know that there was any sort of dunks on the candidate.

Nobody's sitting at home thinking about who they want to win for.

Oh, well, I guess he's not my guy.

He wrote something on his hand.

What did you make of the back and forth?

Yeah, I mean, I, I think most viewers watching Wednesday's debate would probably just leave frustrated.

There is a lot of talking over each other and, you know, personal attacks and, and attacks that were really in the weed in some cases where, you know, your average voter might not really understand the issue that they're talking about.

I think Thursday it gave a little more.

I think that the candidates were a little settled.

They were more in their zones.

And I think they were able to show people really who they are and so that they could make a difference.

So did i change the dynamics of the race?

No.

And I was surprised that there were no surprises, frankly.

You know I think that debates are a time when you can sort of pull a punch out of your pocket.

And all these punches we'd heard of before.

Did it change the dynamics?

I think I, I think I think John James did well during the debate.

I think he was composed Thursday night when when he debated and I think people maybe who had their doubts abou how he would perform in a debate because he skipped so many in the past.

Maybe, maybe their confidence was reinforced.

I'm going to say no, but for a different reason.

And that is just the reach of these debates.

So the Fox 2 one, I live in Lansing.

I had to go online to go and find it, and I went online to find i because I knew it was happening.

I'm not sure the average voter does.

And as far as I was aware, I only like the first half hour of that debate was even broadcast, and then you would have to g back online anyways to watch it.

Very labor intensive.

The one that was on Thursday did have a wider syndicated reach and was, you know, a little bit less of a, you know, a fight.

But to say that that maybe has swayed voters, I'm not quite sure.

I'm not quite sure that we had I guess we'd have to see the ratings and the tune ins there.

But I don't know if the average voter really tuned in.

I don't know if they knew that this was even happening this week.

I agree with Jordyn, I mean, this is a Republican primary that's seen an extraordinary amount of ad spending and to the tune of, I think, on the Republican side about $35 million.

And so if you're looking for sort of undecided voters, their first impressions of these candidates, if they've been watching TV over the past few months those are already largely set.

This is a debate that targeted, the Republican base, Trump loyalist voters.

And these candidates want to communicate to them, I'm the fighter you need.

And that John James, there's some sort of weakness within, you know, his campaign or him as a candidate, you know, from Cox and Johnson's perspective that renders him less electable than I am.

History shows that basicall what happens in these debates, if you like John James going in, you come out, say, he's my guy.

If you like Perry, etc., etc.

so It doesn't move the needle, but it may reinforce for the candidates that are out there.

One of the issues they were debating was the income tax.

Okay.

All three of them want to roll it back.

Does that resonate with people?

I mean I think maybe that people are, you know, looking for affordability and relief in all forms and that income tax could be on that list.

I'm skeptical that some of the claims that people would choose where to live based on tax structure or efficiency, as Perry Johnson, pitched multiple times.

I think that there's a lot that goes into where you're thinking about living and probably, you know, things like family and careers are at the top of the list.

Yeah, I think I would agree with Emily as well.

And also, we wanted to note that this nearly mirrors the 2022 Republican primary.

Kevin Rinke there said that he would completely eliminate the 4.25% personal income tax on day one as governor.

And then, Tudor Dixon said, I want to eliminate the income tax, but it's got to be done gradually.

This is exactly what John James, proposed alongside Perry Johnson's immediate elimination.

I think you need it's very easy to go ou and see if I'm elected governor.

I'm going to get your eliminate your income tax.

One problem is you got to get it through a legislature.

So we spoke rather to Matt Hall, speaker of the House, on this issue.

He's got somewhat of a different take.

Republican governor candidates Mike Cox and Perry Johnson want to eliminate the state income tax.

If elected, so does John James by reducing the tax by 25% the first year, with a goa of getting rid of it entirely.

But how do you wipe out that $13 billion that the state income tax brings into state coffers for state services, withou decimating those services here for the first time?

House Republican Speaker Matt Hall wades into this debate, saying departments would probably hav to take cuts to their budgets, and the new governor could not wipe it out.

That tax completely in the first year.

I don't think that, you can eliminate the income tax in one year, but I do think you can do it over several years.

Only eight states do not have the income tax, and the rest of the states rely heavily on it for its essential state services.

And regarding the loss of those services, a phased in program, according to the speaker, is the way to go, he says it will help as we're, to soften the blow as we, as we wor toward lowering the income tax in a future governor administration, the economic bean counters are telling the speaker, here's how to do this.

Under 4%.

That's viewe very favorably and competitive.

Maybe under 3%, you know, is when you really start to see, economic growth.

So I think the first goa would be to get it to like 3%.

And then if you can go further, go further, but to have any chance of doing a phase out of the income tax, the popular wisdom is the Republicans would need to control the House, the Senate and the governor's office.

But if the Democrats contro any one of those three branches, well, the income tax elimination might be on life support on its way to a slow demise.

So it just bugs me that the candidates could get away with saying, I'm I'm going to do this.

It's not true.

That's politics.

I mean, that's how it's always been.

But to your point, yeah, I mean, so much hinges on this idea of I'm going to eliminate the income tax if I'm elected governor.

As you point out you require a completely unified party system and the legislature and the governor to say nothing of the fact of you know, what's going to happen when you do theoretically eliminate this.

Also backing up to the fact, the argument being that, you know, you'll move to Michigan if we don't have an income tax with what housing structure we're down so many affordable houses.

That's another huge portion of it.

It's a huge tangled web, but I don't think that you can just definitivel point to the income tax and say, this is how we're going to grow our population in Michigan.

Tim, I've pointed this out before on the show is that, you know, Speaker Hall, if you to the extent that voters are paying attention, I spent the past two years saying that he's laser focused on identifying waste, fraud and abuse.

We haven't gotten anywhere near $13 billion that would be required to replace that revenue.

So it seems like, you know, he's correct and that it would be really difficult to completely eliminate the income tax without cutting departmental spending significantly.

But Perry Johnso has sort of an excuse for this when you talk to him about it.

And that's that he's going to conduct a so-called mega audit that this is sort of a magic bullet, where he's going to identify so many billions of dollar in spending that is unnecessary.

He has to do is call up the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee.

The Republicans say they've already done this, haven't they gone through and weeded through all the waste, fraud and abuse?

Yeah.

I mean, he's I mean, he's effectively undermining their promises by, you know, the reality o the, budgets that they produce.

They're not passing budgets that have $13 billion reduced in spending.

All right.

Any other comments on the governor's debate?

We had enough.

All right.

Let's go to the let's go to the US Senate debate featuring two candidates.

There were three, two running for the US Senate.

What what happened there?

Major shakeup when Mallory McMorrow dropped out.

I think that she's rather independent spending coming.

That wasn't coming our way.

And also had slipped in the polls in recent weeks and months.

So, that was a big shake up for 4th of July weekend.

And the debate itself I mean, I think it was one watch nationally, right?

Like a lot of people are tuned into to this race.

Mor so after McMorrow dropped out.

And, you know, I think the candidates had, you know, a while ago they kind of dropped the gloves in this race, and I think they put on brass knuckles during that debate because there's they're really, going after each other now.

And I think a lot of, a lot of folks are watching, reading the tea leaves in this debate, and it's really difficult to say who who came out the winner.

These are, of course, who are Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed.

Yeah.

I mean, I think I go back to what we just talked about with the gubernatorial debate where, you know, there were a lot of punches that came out in this debate.

We saw, Abdul El-Sayed go after, Haley Stevens for the level of corporate support that she's seen from DTE, from APAC.

We've seen Haley Stevens go after, El-Sayed for the fact that he hasn't released his tax returns yet, she's implying that he is, very wealthy.

She keeps saying that she's the only non millionaire in the race.

But I want to go back to you when we talked about, you know, the gubernatorial debate.

I don't know if this moved the needl so much for people in the sense that if you went in and Abdul found you came out definitely an Abdul.

fan.

If you were came in a Haley Stevens fan, she put up a heck of a fight.

And I think that if you were in her corner before, you definitely were after that performance.

You know, I think it's important to point out that one, Haley Stevens has had around $35 million in ad spending in her favor.

That really helps increase statewide.

Mid.

Mallory McMorrow.

She had that viral moment in 2022 that built her this national fundraisin database of small dollar donors that was helping her in this race.

But it didn't translate necessarily to support within Michigan.

So from that perspective, I think Abdul was relatively successfu at doing what he set out to do, which is sort of hammer his message.

You know, when you're an insurgent, populist, outside candidate, you need sort of this crystalline message.

And he talks about his sort of three point plan.

I think Medicare for all is part of it.

Money out of politics and money in your pocket, I believe.

And by just sort of hammering that message along with his negative points on Haley Stevens, I think, you know this was an effort on his part to introduce himself to voters who haven't heard his name because he hasn't had tha same kind of financial backing.

If you rated this debate on the number of time you stayed on message, he won.

The count was 31 times.

He did this thing about whatever it was, which I can't remember.

Yeah.

I mean, definitely in I feel like he's stayed on that message, throughout his campaign.

And, he's really been hammering it in, but I think we're also seeing, like, with McMorrow dropping out, kind of, a change in this race, too, that it is getting even more tense, even more personal.

With the attacks on social media that that they're getting very, very heightened.

So some of that messaging I think is going, going to the side as as these candidates really go.

And let me just ask a stupid question, okay?

Only attacks on social media do the bulk of the voters in Michigan know that is going on?

No.

I would say more than we think but not the bulk, not the bulk.

I don't think that we should undercount the fact because, I mean, I go back to thinking about how online back during the 2024 presidential election, how much the uncommitted movement was dismissed because it was a solely online movement.

Kamala Harris lost Michigan, you know, so I don't want to fully discredit it.

But I do want to say that the loudest voice may not be coming from Michigan.

Well, isn't there an age line there?

Would 55 year olds be just glue to the their social media to see what's going on in the US Senate race?

Yeah, I mean, I think there' an age line in both directions.

You know, if some of this is happening on Twitter or Facebook, you know, if you're under 30, you might not be engaged in those platforms.

So I think that there's a lot of, a lot of room.

But what I struggle with is knowing whether what we're seeing online, in terms of the supporters that are reflected, is going to parallel super well with who we see show up on Election day, you know, especially since Abduls support is coming from such a youth led movement in some cases.

I think that definitely to Emily's point that Abdul El-Sayed's campaign is sort of trying to blaze a trail that we've seen some other politicians blaze at the national level, which is one that is betting entirely on sort of enthusiasm from demographics that historically, at least in Michigan, haven't been shown to have high turnouts, youth vote, college students, young progressives who otherwise might be disillusioned by the political process.

But it's a huge gamble.

I mean, his campaign fully invested in sort of pumping out these short form videos one after the other.

Whereas on the flip side, Stevens is running a much more traditional campaign.

How did she do on selling her message, which is he can't beat Mike Rogers?

Did we hear that in spades or not?

You know she had that line at one point that said, he looks more like Mike Rogers than I do, which was a little confusing to me.

It did sort of just seem like that was thrown ou there as a as a strange attack.

I don't think that we saw Rogers hammered as much, just like we didn't see Benson nearly mentioned at all in any of the gubernatorial debates.

And I think it just simply comes down to the fact that you're seeing it.

Is Republicans in the, the governor's race.

You're now seeing it with Democrats.

You're figuring out where the heck is my party going?

And you know, it's who is who is going to be the next face.

They're so intra focused at this point, I don't think we heard anything about how they beat Rogers.

That is the sub rows of discussion that's going on i the Democratic Party, is it not?

Yeah.

I mean, I think there's a huge worry from the establishment in the Democratic Party is whether whether Abdu will be able to beat Mike Rogers at the end of the day.

And, I don't know that that necessarily came across in the debate as much as the establishment hoped it would.

But, I do think there's that concern there underpinning a lot of what's going on in the race.

Beth mentioned the national attention here.

I think that this one on on setup is a lot more intriguing for national people who are looking at the future of the Democratic Party and saying, is it going to go to these sort of establishment folks who have bee holding guard for a long time, or is it going to go to this progressive sort of bent of the party that's really, you know, having somewhat of a moment right now with Mamdani in New York?

And also some of the, congressional delegation.

I definitely think that this moment speaks to the hyperpartisan climate that we're in.

As as Emily noted, I you know, we're at a stage where a lot of these candidates in these campaigns think that sort of their bases are set for the general election.

And so wha they're going to say right now doesn't have to be circumscribed by what they se as electability in this moment.

The amount of money and spending that we're seeing coming into our elections means that outside groups are going to come in and hammer talking points that are poll tested in focus groups aimed at voters who haven't been paying attention to this race.

So if they're, you know, sort of infighting or squabbling over these little pieces of the party, it is about a fight over the future of the Republican and Democratic parties and they don't see the sort of general election season consequences as all that relevant.

Well, it even goes beyond that, however, because part of this message is this seed could determine control of the US Senate.

Now, if you were a candidate, you know, you know what?

If you don't want Donald Trump controlling the US Senate, this race is important.

You need to vote for me.

Nobody said that either.

No, but you did hear a lot of mentions of Chuck Schumer in the Senate debate.

Nobody knows who Chuck Schumer is.

No.

But the party loyalists who are following this Democratic primary like a hawk, and the national groups are interested in spending on it.

They do.

Well but can't the progressives win in November?

Are there enough of them and independents?

It might come along.

I mean, I certainly think it's a possibility.

Certainly the Republicans, you know, with Trump on the ballot and in the white House, there's a historic lag there.

So, you know, I think that ther may be a Democratic wave year.

We don't know yet, how that's shaping up.

But I think that a progressive, is viable in Michigan.

And?

Well, yeah, I think if, if, if there's a year when they would be viable in Michigan, it'd be this year.

It would it would be a ne change in the Democratic Party.

Right?

It's sort of I guess it depends on whether you think of our electorate as moderate or polarized.

You know, there are two different ways to look at our recent election results.

I said last wee when we put the show in the can, it was before the state budget was done.

What happened after we left?

A whole lot.

Yeah.

We've had a historically unproductive legislature this session.

They've only passed a couple handfuls of bills, and then all of a sudden we had a state budget passed and alongside, I think, 6 pieces of legislation.

Policy.

Yes.

And I was the but pretty controversial.

It's not a consequential, though.

I mean, some, part of it is, regarding pulling back some regulations to help build more housing in Michigan, part of it is to, quote unquote, close the revolving doo where lawmakers, leave office.

And very shortly after become lobbyists.

That would install a cooling off period.

So it's bigger pieces of legislation that we didn't see moved.

They're not signed yet.

We're not clear when they're going to be signed up.

But, you know, at least some policies moving.

What do you make of the budget?

I was on vacation when it passed.

You're the only smart person in the group.

I have caught up on it since.

But yeah, I mean, I think it was there weren't any huge surprises in the budget.

You know it was kind of what you expect.

The K-1 lobby is madder than a wet hen once again usually.

I mean well that's what they get paid to do.

But yes the there were historic amount yet again moved from the school aid fund to other parts o the budget in higher education.

Yes, to higher education in that is something that really bothers them.

And, you know, kind of with reason.

You see all these lottery commercials where they say that, you know, the tax revenue from the lottery is going to schools.

Is it really because it's going to the school aid fund and that is being shifted over into other priorities in the budget.

So I feel like it is it is a little bit of a, a difficulty for, for the schools at this.

Well, remember that started with Governor Snyder and it continued through the current governor.

What is the rationale for taking K-12 money and giving to higher ed, as some might argue, if our kids aren't learning now, they're not going to go to college.

So why are you giving money to higher ed?

Sometimes I, at least at last check.

I think school aid fund was growing faster than general funds.

So I think a lot o it is just logistical like that.

You know, you have these these two pots of money and one's a really restricted use fund.

Right.

And I think that, you know, higher education is viewed as more in line with the purpose of schoo aid in K-12 than, you know, so funding the Department of Corrections out of that which nobody has proposed.

But then you hear the higher education community say, we don't know, we don't want this because it's not baked into the budget, it is a permanent aid in year to year.

And so, I mean, that's, you know, take your money and be quiet.

I mean, I think this is what happens when you end up having a budget that is, you know, three days late that is negotiated in the middle of the night, that is past that two in the morning on a state holiday that, you know, yes you've had some time to review some of the legislative spending items in it because they are now u on a website, but we didn't know which ones were going to actually be in the budget until the final document.

We can say all we want.

You know, that this has bee a transparent, fluent process.

It's not been and and that's, you know, that's why people get angry when they wake up the next morning and see what the heck, why did all this money move?

Well, I don't know, because all the conversations happened in the middle of the night.

Yeah.

To Jordyn's point, the earmark legislation that passed last term promised transparency in this process.

But I think that it really brought anything.

But, although we sa what the proposed earmarks were, they were they were, I think 135 of them out of about 1300 proposals some of which were probably more performative than realistic.

And then that means, like, I think they got $125 million in these earmarks, so only a small portion of that actually became real.

You're looking for needles in a haystack.

We were all ready to write the story about $4.1 billion in pork going out the door, and then they didn't do it.

Well, how come?

I would point to Beth LeBlancs excellent reporting on earmarks over the years.

And do you taking credit for that Mrs.

LeBlanc?

Im not taking credit for that.

There are a lot of people who wrote about the earmarks over the years, but the, Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, they they know that we're going to be watching it closely because there has been so much pork in in the budget in years past that has not passed the sniff test.

So I think, they knew we were looking.

I still thin there's probably more in there that we don't know about.

Sometimes it takes quite a while to weed it all out.

Yeah, yeah.

But it so far it looks lik they, they did a smaller amount.

Well in their defense last year, it took them 95 days past the deadline to get it done.

So 2 or 3 days for government work is close enough.

Right?

I mean, sort of I mean, there's this is an opportunity for sort of bipartisan cooperation, the kind that the governor, Gretchen Whitmer, touts constantly.

But when you look at, you know, we're in a shifting fiscal picture right now.

And if you look at the major structural changes that need to happen to Michigan's government to sort of prevent kicking the ca and have fiscal sustainability, I don't kno if we saw that in this budget, there was no reason for it to end up where it did.

I'm glad that we got it long before when we did get it, though, and I'm sure everyone els campaigning this season is too.

Yeah, we weren't smart enough to be on vacation to miss it.

Got to plan these things Tim.

Good for you.

Thank you all for showing up.

Thanks for being a part of Off the Records audience, and we'll see you here for more next week.

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